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PLAYOFF CHALLENGE 2016: DIVISIONAL ROUND

As usual, the Playoff Challenge began with a bang instead of a whimper. The Kansas City defense took care of business in Houston, scoring the most points of anyone in the wild card round. The Bengals players did what I expected them to do against the Steelers: pretty much nothing. And the Green Bay Packers dealt a blow to the hopes of anyone who had stocked DeSean Jackson, Jordan Reed, or Kirk Cousins in their playoff lineups. Here were the top scorers from that wild card round:

As you can see, even though these were the top scorers at position for the wild card round, a few of them won’t be around any longer in the playoffs, forcing people who played them to look elsewhere, and to lost multipliers because of it. Players who are gone include Cousins, Green, and Reed. For those people I always suggest going with lower percentage plays moving forward in order to play catchup against those who still have full lineups. Some names to consider as replacements are:

Just remember that you should choose only players from teams you think will win in the divisional round, or you’ll be stuck once again with having to choose even more players without multipliers for the conference round. Here is my slate of players for the divisional round:

Originally, I had Seattle players rounding out my strongly Chiefs mix, but at the last minute I made the switch to the Panthers as my team to make it to the Super Bowl out of those on the NFC side. With that switch I went with Ted Ginn, Greg Olsen, and Cam Newton, and I’m counting on them to take care of business against the Seahawks this week. It was a big gamble to make, but I felt it in my gut. We’ll see how it shakes out.

Also, I will get the 2x bonus for every single player on my team this week, unless Jeremy Maclin doesn’t play, in which case I will have to go with someone else, probably another Chiefs receiver or Devin Funchess from Carolina*.

*(1/15) Antonio Brown has now been ruled out for the matchup against the Broncos, and if Jeremy Maclin follows suit for the game against the Patriots then I will have a conundrum. If that happens I’ll have to ask myself one important question. Do I think the Chiefs will win the game against the Patriots? If I honestly think the Chiefs will win then I’ll take the risk of getting no points from Maclin this round in the hopes that he returns for the Conference Round, preserving my chance to get 3x points for him there. However, if I think Maclin not playing will tilt the scales in the favor of the Patriots I would be better served to go with another Carolina receiver, like Devin Funchess, who has come on of late.

I sacrificed points from the Wild Card round in pursuit of points now and going forward, which is bold but risky. Carolina, as the top seed playing at home, though, is worth the risk.

Hopefully you also have a full lineup going into the Divisional Round games, but if you don’t it’s not too late to pick up the pace. Just go with players with low percentages because surprises happen in each and every round, and you might just get lucky, like I did with Spencer Ware this past week.